Dr Moé Suzuki

Student holding a banner saying 'OUR UNIVERSITY'

Universities collect student voice through surveys but ignore it when it challenges their decisions, says Moé Suzuki. Is there another way?
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

As a racialised ECR on a fixed-term contract, I found this research process often saddening & infuriating, but ultimately affirming of my belief in practising care & community-building. Massive thanks to my RA, Kris!

If anyone would like to discuss this project, please get in touch 📩

Lastly: fixed-term “career development” posts in UKHE need clarification around what exactly CD activities look like in practice. Too often we’re too overwhelmed with teaching to do research, which is needed to land ever-elusive permanent post…

There is also a systematic lack of support for disabled ECRs (esp those w/ chronic illness) and those with caring responsibilities. Implicitly, institutions communicate what kind of scholars they want: unattached, always “well” to do the job as told. The ideal scholar is devoid of body & community.

I was also struck by a participant who said those who work within the ‘Western canon’ tend to do better re: promotions & retention. Those who don’t are silently pushed out of the institution. So, if you engage in such scholarship, even if you have a permanent contract, you still feel precarious.

I could spend hours discussing the interview data. Lots of overlap with existing research on experience of racialised scholars in HE. One of the most insightful findings for me was the “elite” culture of institutions like LSE - feeling out of place, a sense of “sink or swim”, not being good enough.

5 line graphs, each showing the relationship between academic role (Professor, Associate professor, Assistant professor, LSE fellow, and Researcher) and race (‘Asian’, ‘Black’, ‘Mixed’, ‘Other’, ‘White’, ‘Unknown’).

🛤️The ‘leaky pipeline’ issue exists at LSE. Racialised scholars (esp Black scholars) are underrepresented at senior academic roles, and overrepresented at junior, precarious roles with fixed-term contracts.

What this data shows for me is that precarity is a racial justice issue.

📒Experiences of early career researchers racialised as ‘non-white’

In 2024/2025, I led a project investigating how racialised ECRs at LSE experience the institution, funded by the ECR Network.

Read the report here: moesuzuki.owlstown.net/pages/racial...

But here are some key points ⬇️

Open letter from UK university staff: Request for biometric deferral and safe evacuation of incoming Palestinian students and scholars from Gaza to UK Universities More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. We, the academic community hoping to welcome these scholars, ca...

UKHE staff: please sign. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Screen Workers and Streaming Data - Nina Vindum Rasmussen Media Industries Podcast · Episode

🎧 Thrilled to be featured on this podcast series on AI and the media industries. The episode explores how streamers like Netflix use audience data and how this impacts creative practices.

Hosts: Paul McDonald & @aorcuncan.bsky.social
Production: Melis Uslu

Link: open.spotify.com/episode/2s5U...

The real cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley In Empire of AI, journalist Karen Hao writes about the rise of OpenAI and the impacts of AI around the world. Below is an extract from the book on the effects on Chile's mineral reserves and water res...

‘The real cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley’
restofworld.org/2025/ai-reso...

Reading Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism also clarified for me how racialised labour (some people who would now be called “migrants” in the nation-state system) has always been part of capitalism.

As Hein de Haas says, “being against migration is like being against the economy”.

The govt also cannot make the argument that immigration is “bad” because there’s been economic stagnation despite higher immigration levels - what are the control variables?

Reading the white paper on immigration and I feel my inner teacher marking it: “Evidence?”; “cherry-picking evidence”; “can you find a more recent source?”

Experiences of racialised early career researchers at LSE: Report Launch Come join us as we launch a report on the experiences of racialised early career researchers at LSE and connect with racialised academics.

I’m organising an event to launch the report from my project on the experiences of early career researchers at LSE who are racialised as ‘non-white’. 4th June, 15:30-17:00. The event is hybrid, open to LSE staff and PhD students!

Details & registration here: racialised-ecr-lse.eventbrite.co.uk

University of East Anglia staff begin strike action today over threat of compulsory redundancies and lack of financial transparency Staff at the University of East Anglia (UEA) will begin nine days of strike action today (Thursday 1 May) in a dispute over compulsory redundancies, financial accountability, and transparent governanc...

On International Worker's Day @uea-ucu.bluesky.social began 9 days of strike action to save jobs & avoid compulsory redundancy.
We have already given the university considerable savings via "voluntary" measures.
Now mgmt needs to do the right thing & call this off.

www.ucu.org.uk/article/1400...

🇵🇸 PALESTINE: A Sociological Issue 🇵🇸

Join us for the second in our Conversations series as we put a sociological lens on the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

🍉 Thu 8 May 18.30-20.00 UTC+1 online
🍉 Ashjan Ajour, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Cairsti Russell & Rafeef Ziadah
🍉 Register: buff.ly/xE1NHos

"A new dataset, visualized as maps, reveals the extent to which African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs." restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...

Shouting 'what makes a real woman' as the earth is on fire!* Every border implies the violence of its maintenance. It’s just that the border guards differ. Borders come in many kinds. The borders this statement

Sandra Duffy responds to the #ForWomenScotland decision of the UK Supreme Court, which creates the category of legally-female-but-not-a-woman for the purposes of equality law! criticallegalthinking.com/2025/04/24/s...

UK university redundancies: latest updates As higher education institutions shed thousands of jobs, we track developments and bring together latest analysis with resources for affected staff and students

We are now approaching 4,000 formally announced university redundancies in the UK since January alone. The real situation is far worse than that, and will also accelerate going forwards. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/uk-univ...

Help us challenge the Supreme Court’s judgment on trans rights | Good Law Project We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.

Today we launched our crowdfunder to challenge last week’s Supreme Court’s decision – which we believe has placed the UK in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act 🏳️‍⚧️

DeepMind UK staff seek to unionise and challenge defence deals and Israel links Move by employees at Google’s AI arm follows discontent after weapons and surveillance pledge is dropped

DeepMind UK staff seek to unionise and challenge defence deals and Israel links
on.ft.com/44GylMq

Home - Sudan Solidarity Collective Solidarity with Sudan! Support the Emergency Response Rooms doing life saving work in Sudan by donating to the Sudan Solidarity Fund. Workshops4Sudan is a new fundraising initiative of the Sudan Solid...

The @sdnsolidarity.bsky.social is providing support to various civilian-led groups providing relief and protection support in N. Darfur where hundreds of thousands are fleeing the RSF's genocidal violence. To support pls go to sudansolidarity.com. Pls consider becoming a monthly donor 🙏🏿.

Academic publishing rates sharing

Hey, academics! Have you signed a book contract lately?
You should report your royalty/advance rate anonymously on this spreadsheet.
Are you negotiating, or about to be negotiating, a book contract? You should take a look at the spreadsheet.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

UK Supreme Court Rules That Trans Women Aren’t Women under the Equality Act 2010 The legal definition of a woman in the UK now excludes trans people: This is what it means for Trans+ rights in the country

My analysis of today's UK Supreme Court judgment.

The UK Supreme Court Rules That Trans Women Aren't Women Under the Equality Act 2010

www.wearequeeraf.com/uk-supreme-c...

Advert for PSA RMI Political Studies Review Sumposium entitled interdisciplinary perspectives on Blackness and Black politics. Event will be held Friday 25th July 2025 at the PSA Office in Camden, London. Deadline for abstracts Friday 25 April 2025. Link to form same as post. Selected contributions from this symposium will be published in an issue of Political Studies Review after subjection to a peer review process.

🚨🚨🚨CALL FOR PAPERS! The PSA's Race, Migration & Intersectionality Working group is hosting a symposium entitled, 'Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Blackness and Black Politics.' We invite abstracts of up to 200 words by Friday 25 April 2025. forms.gle/jpPLz7Tuytuu...

I had no idea Anduril’s bordering technology had reached the shores of the UK…. the founder of Anduril, Palmer Luckey, is the founder of Oculus VR (now part of Meta). In my PhD I discussed the framing of VR technology as “empathy machine” vis-a-vis uses of VR for border violence/“killing machine”.